Sound recordings, and in particular, musical performances having a number of instrumental parts, are widely available on a large number of mediums. These mediums include traditional phonograph records and magnetic tapes, as well as optical compact discs and magnetic disks. The sound recording is stored on these mediums as a composite audio signal which represents the sum total of all individual component parts of the recording. In the case of a musical performance, the component instrumental parts are generally performed in synchronization and the composite musical performance recorded as a single audio signal that is stored in either an analog or digital format.
Recorded musical performances are used extensively in the teaching and analysis of musical composition, performance and conducting. Many music students desiring to learn an instrumental part in a musical performance still rely on the conventional technique of visually following a copy of the musical score in real time with a recorded performance of the same musical score. Other students attempt to "play along" with the recorded performance of the score at the passage(s) which they desire to learn. Unfortunately, few students can read an orchestral or big band score in real time while listening to a recorded performance. Even fewer students can perform an instrumental part from an orchestral or big band score in real time while listening to a recorded performance. "Practice" records, in which one instrumental part from the musical performance has been eliminated, are available to allow the music student to play along with the recording and perform the missing instrumental part. Unfortunately such records are available for only a limited number of musical performances and with even fewer instrumental combinations.
The above techniques can be frustrating, particularly if a musical passage is difficult, since few playback devices provide facilities for changing the tempo of the recorded performance, and then only with a corresponding change in pitch. Further, the listener is unable to selectively listen to individual parts of the musical performance without hearing all instrumental parts simultaneously. Finally, the listener is bound to the instrumentation and orchestration of the musical performance as recorded and, at best, can only imagine how the score would sound as played by different musical instruments.
It should be noted, that during the conventional recording of an analog audio signal representing a musical performance, the individual instrumental parts can be each recorded on separate tracks of a magnetic tape and can be individually listened to or muted to facilitate audio mixing and recording of the composite audio signal. However, this technique requires a multitrack master tape, each track containing an individual recording of an instrumental part, a multitrack tape deck and a multitrack mixing console. The above equipment is typically available only in well equipped audio recording studios which are usually inaccessible to most music students. Multitrack master tapes are expensive to reproduce, are seldom, if ever, reproduced and are thus not available for student use even of if the equipment were available. Consequently, such a technique is impractical and far too expensive for wide spread use as a method of teaching or analyzing music composition and performance. Moreover, classical music is seldom recorded via multitrack method. Thus, few compositions normally used in music education would be available for study by this method, even if well equipped studios were accessible.
Accordingly it is an object of present invention to provide a method and apparatus for synthetically generating, storing and synchronizing a collection of individual instrumental parts along with a composite pre existing recording of a musical performance of the same instrumental parts.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a method and apparatus which enables a user to listen to a recorded musical performance, stored as a composite audio signal comprised of all instrumental parts, in conjunction with a performance of one or all parts of the same musical score stored as a collection of individually recorded instrumental parts.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a means by which a user can dissect a synthesized performance to analyze individual instrumental parts, repeating sections of the synthesized performance at will and adding other instrumental parts until he understands how the score is built, and possibly how it would sound if re orchestrated for different instruments.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a method of studying music in which the student may utilize a synthesized version of a recorded performance to assist him in studying an instrumental part wherein the student can select various sections of the instrumental part for listening and playing at a tempo with which the student feels comfortable.
A further object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus which enables the user to listen to a synthesized version of a musical performance in synchronization with an original recording of the same performance or at a tempo which is different-from that of the original recorded performance.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a means by which the user may select a segment of a synthesized performance and repeat it at will with various permutations and combinations of such instrumental parts.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a means by which the user may selectively mute individual instrumental parts of the synthesized performance with or without synchronization of the synthesized performance to the originally recorded performance.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus which enables a user to modify, store or augment a synthesized performance and replay such a modified version of the synthesized performance in synchronization with the originally recorded performance.
Still a further object of the present invention is to provide a storage medium containing a composite audio signal, representing a musical performance, timing and synchronization information, and a synthesized musical performance, comprised of synthetically generated, individually stored instrumental parts.